In my home, animals outnumber humans. Since my last post, the habitat has changed and the creatures have increased.
A shoulder cat named Darbi joined us over a year ago and a trash dog named Emma was introduced at the peak of summer.
We are surrounded! At the very least we can all pile together for warmth.

Any moments that place me within an arms length of all the furry creatures at once are especially noteworthy.

More than one year ago my brain was vacuumed sealed. Recently it’s been thawed, re-introduced to fresh air and permitted to stew in it’s own juices. I am again seeing through the muck of every day work and routine, but this time without completely halting any productivity and still chugging toward the vaguest of goals. I must say, I did miss the keeping of odd hours. Consistent sleep always seems to distract me from the most succulent thoughts and activities. There is no need to fret, my restlessness has returned! One very large step in the right direction began two or so weeks ago with the half drunken promise between myself and a very good friend; typically grand plans with branches of possibility shooting dangerously in every direction. The thing that made it different was the follow-through. That is to say, we actually followed through. An absolutely rare (if not nearly extinct!) occurrence in my shared life with others. If we did even a tenth of the things we discussed…

We joined forces with this basic objective: Bake our faces off!
With our adventure off to a not-so-surprising late start, the first leg of our plan began: the gathering of supplies.

It is difficult for me to shop with other people, whether I’m at the grocery store, fabric and crafts, thrift store or anywhere! This is because I get excited. Very fucking excited. Things and colors and ideas swirl about my head in a joyful delusion any time I am exposed to many items at once. Match this overwhelming amusement with my scatter-brained judgement and you get a lot of strange grunting sounds, clapping, gasping and jumping up and down. A lot of cursing too. Plus I have to touch everything, I’m like a four-year-old (a four-year-old muttering FUCK out of excitement and subsequently spending all my tip money).

However, on this day my shopping partner was Laura. With her I don’t feel rushed and my general sense of being overwhelmed is accented with her equally childlike amazement and delight at being surrounded by so many options. This being said, we are still a spectacle of oddity. One giant and one half-ling skipping about wildly, communicating perfectly with a series of high pitched sounds and clicks. I wont venture too far into the details, just know that our three stops were a perfect mess. The bulk foods section made an especially strong impression on me. For the first time in the my life, under the valuable guidance of Laura’s experience and knowledge, I would have a kitchen filled with all the basic baking supplies needed to fuel many a late-night, green-induced foray into a new recipe. I’d say we got more than enough to start us off.

The rest of the event was a whirlwind of creation! We set out to make several specific items. A 7-up cake (with green butter), Nanaimo Bars (a Canadian favourite), Madeleine cookies/cupcakes, Sourdough bread (in the bread maker) and apple bread. The kitchen ended up completely trashed and all the counters covered in more treats than we knew what to do with.

The Nanaimos are a sweet I’m very fond of. A tasty no bake, triple layered bar that just requires a little patience. This was my first attempt at making them. If I remember correctly, while growing up in southern British Columbia my mother made them with mint in the top layer of chocolate. This is either true, or just something I want to be true because minty-chocolate goodies are magnificent! Unfortunately on this day I had no mint in my kitchen so I attempted to capture it’s sense by dying the middle cream layer of the nanaimos green and by also crushing up two candy canes I found and incorporating them into the top chocolate layer. I don’t think the canes were enough to really add flavor, but they sure looked excellent!

The night spun by in a sort of lovely exhaustion.
Creation is something that I feel should be respected deeply by all. Whether it’s art, music, food, words (or socks woven from cat hair) it’s simply incredible! Of course, the individual attached the hands of creation should be especially grateful.

[Tuesday April 20]
Laundry day brings clean clothes and reunions with guitar picks thought to be lost. Bus rides are welcome, giving me a solid time to catch up on comic books and soak in the energy of those with whom I share the earth. Each time someone asked me the date while writing a check or signing something at work I just smile and tell them it’s the twentieth of April, underground holidays are the best.

After a surprisingly busy day at work I spent the afternoon with my lovely Amy. I like her brain because it swirls around with mine each time we’re within eye shot and everything else melts away and we are kings of the universe! We break into tears at the sight of a dead creature and emit high pitched sounds at the sight of a live one. Even small little things like mister caterpillar, getting knocked over by the wind on the side walk.

We play in the garden (fuck being grown-ups!) and I show her the big fat cut I earned just hours earlier with a pair of scissors while trying to break down boxes. She just laughs and makes fun of me for my lack of finesse with a blade, it makes me wanna kick her ass! I threaten her and she’s so much smaller than me, but her eyes keep steady and she smiles. We’ll battle soon.

At some point in the quest for food and cigarettes Amy opens the trunk and starts making an excited high pitched sound. I know there’s not a cute little animal in there so my curiosity peaks. She comes to the window: ‘I still have half a half gallon of vodka in my trunk!!’
Just imagine my eyes getting real wide and my smile doubling: ‘FUCK yes! This day just got even sweeter!’ We light up and head to my place, tonight is gonna be good.

A holiday best spent with friends, we walk into the apartment quickly filled with excellent conversationalists and music in every room. Shot of vodka, shot of vodka, guitar, keyboard, singing. We should be writing songs for Dee Dee Bat, be we cannot focus. Amy wants to fight and I’m completely willing, but she’s so little! In the back of my head I’m afraid I’ll hurt her and then I feel guilty because we both know that’s the whole point and we both know all I need is a little more liquid encouragement. I owe her a couple hits in the ribs. She’s been working and going to school like crazy so it’s awesome that she decides to spend a chunk of her day off with me, and we’ll be making a trip to Seattle in May. I love this girl!

Earlier in the day a revolution brews in my brain. My notebook has been assaulted by mental gunfire as is evident by the ill prepared ink and sentence fragments wrecking the pages. I had to get all the thoughts down. A zine (an idea revisited thanks to a friend who recently put one together herself) based around finding our independence from governments and corporations in small ways with bartering and increased personal skill sets. It will be in print soon, I can feel the content bubbling up. I’m going to hand the first copies out at our vegan/vegetarian dinner on May 16th. Let me know if you want to come! Bring wine/drinks or coordinate with us and bring a vegan/veggie appetizer, dinner or dessert dish!

The remainder of the night was a swirl of advances, puppies, music and SLEEP. I hadn’t done that one in a little while.

[Wednesday, April 21]
Waking up a little hung over and sore did nothing to kill my instant joy today. I have to work soon, but it’s okay because all my clothes are clean. I’m hungry but we got groceries last night! It’s even healthy stuff! The sun is taking a little break, it rained all night. Everything is damp and heavy and I just wanna roll around in the world. Tomorrow we trek to Spokane for good company, laser tag and a punk rock show!

My thoughts are abundant, but steady, and my soul is absolute. Let’s do this mother fuckers!

A lot of well formed habits make up my day to day routine.
There are fifteen stone stairs followed by twenty-one full steps to get to the front door of my apartment with a four-stair/one-step set leading up to those. Volume settings must remain on any odd number at all times. When doing two loads of laundry I have to put the quarters in both machines simultaneously, same with pressing the setting buttons, then I always start with the machine on the right when unloading. My point is, there are certain objects associated with my obsessive routines that have become almost important as the acts themselves. My ipod is the number one item I have on my person at any times of any travel beyond my home where there is the threat of not having quality music to listen to for any period of time. I walk a lot, skate a little, adventure at night and a soundtrack seems absolutely necessary for each endeavor.

There is also a pair of gloves (fingerless, black & gray and extending to the elbow!) my aunt gave me for Christmas that I have found myself strangely infatuated with. They are always on my hands, even after I take off my survival jackets. I fucking wear them to shows, play beer pong in them, sew in them, play piano in them.

I ordinarily wear them while typing, but I am not wearing them now.
I do not know where they are. SIGH. I lost them at some point last night, I am hoping heavily they’re in my buddy Paolini’s car or at the restaurant or just hiding in the depths of my room. In any case, I find myself feeling guilty in mourning their absence because, after all, they are only a silly object. Still, though, my arms are sad and hope their warmers return some how.

Of late, I have been consuming fairly decent meals in comparison to my usual lot of metabolic encouragement. Dinners have included a lot of blueberries, potatoes, rice and beer. Now that I put it in words, it doesn’t seem like a healthy diet, but it’s an actual improvement on last week’s dining. There are breakfasts of apples and bananas at times, plus extensive amounts of water.

While on the topic of habits…I find it extraordinary how they become, almost by definition, a muscle memory of an action as opposed to one intentionally sought to complete. Many of mine tend to go unnoticed by my conscious self so I’m always surprised when I open my birth control pills to find that the day’s pill has, indeed, been ingested and all is well.

Good job brain, keep it up!

Today is the second of of a three day workless weekend for this human. I slept in yesterday, a rare feat! It impeded my efficiency a little but I managed to accomplish quite a bit regardless. This morning, my mind will not allow additional slumber which just as well considering there is so much sewing and cleaning to be done! Then there is the song writing and dog bathing and hair cutting and drinking and smoking! So I thought it best to make an early start of it all. Though I do really enjoy the two jobs I have at the bridal shop and hosting karaoke in a couple Pasco bars.

Dresses by day, tequila/sound equipment/tips by night!

I am watching Bronson the dog twitch his little feet while he sleeps and Sean Connery is passed out cozy on the floor. I adore these little creatures and Sunday is family day! Which means walks for Bronson, cat nip and combing for Sean, a clean tank and filter for Norman (turtle). The fact that there are people who don’t have pets to enhance their lives baffles me!

In fact, while sitting on an idling bus at the transit center a few days back I was observing a young puppy and it’s owner. This probably three-month-old animal was the most jolly little bulk of fuzz, happily romping at the heel of his leash holder and responding merrily to any requests of stopping or sitting. I began to think of Bronson and how I wish I would have taken more steps to strengthen his training (and thus, our bond) when he was younger and more eager to please. I wonder if it feels the same way to be a human parent watching a new mother with her child; cure-less pangs of regret due to the most selfish and personal bits of one’s own, mostly unavoidable, characteristic nature. In any case, I know my relationship with my animals is strongly in tact, doubt just has a way of possessing the most effective forms of ego-bashing osmosis.

I call them my puppikittikins!

Part of my adventures yesterday involved a trip to the grocery store to get a bus pass and a few apples. While in line, the gay rude girl (LOC!) in me couldn’t help but stare at a woman I had seen several times already during my current trip in the store. I was staring because I loved the gray of her hair. It’s exactly what I wish my hair would be, colour-wise. I eventually mustered up the impoliteness to ask her if I could take a photo of her head before leaving the store, she agreed!

This image really doesn’t do it justice.

My knees have not been treated favourably in the past few weeks. They were consumed by massive, mosh pit induced bruises for several painful days, aching at the joints due to four inch heels and an extensive amount of walking. They are currently skinned and re-bruised following yesterday’s graceful public portrayal of myself eating shit on the busy sidewalk while skateboarding. The real victim of this little accident, however, was my pants! I wear these damn things everyday, they’re wonderful, perfectly broken in and serve my survival function to near exact desire. The denim has been violated by pavement now and it’s only a matter of time before they become unfit for wear in visible situations. I will have to start searching for the pair that will eventually replace these ones.

I spend a lot of time trying to explain the inconvenience of desk perching to Sean Connery the cat. He walks on the keyboard, bats at the mouse, leaves awkward comments on Facebook and impairs my view of the monitor. I have to commend his persistence, though, because no matter how many times I pick him up and relocate his fuzzy orange kitty body he always eventually returns to his favoured position, rubbing my face with his while big fat purs rumble in his chest. He head butts my hand as it tries to click on things and gets eye juice all over my fingers. God damn adorable little fucking bastard!

You know when you wake up with a pounding head, smelling like sweat with quarters stuck to your tits that you had a good night. If my life were a movie, which scenes from a Wednesday night adventure would make the final cut? :

[couch in a bar]
her: You’re drunk, I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.
me: Well…I’m on top, so that has to count for something.

I’ll have to take a break from being a great American party girl for a day or so considering the lack of funds, booze and patrons. My depression hates me for it, but my body is thankful. It seems today I will have to get creative and dig up some distractions that do not depend so heavily on the voluntary ingestion of poisons.

As visually based as I consider myself to be, I always find it more efficient to express my innards through words. The impact and clarity they lend really makes me feel my message is being relayed with the ever present possibility of reader by reader interpretation. Visual art, of course, contains the same properties but I find little finesse in my abilities there. I tend to combine the two and litter the world with confusing, not-quite-art pieces. It frustrates me a lot of the time, I just want to create something more subtle that lets the viewer really soak an image in without having their feelings interrupted by direct captions on the work itself. I want the words without the letters, I guess that’s what fashion is for.

I wonder if civilization will eventually build up higher and higher until it collapses in on itself and burns to a crisp. I kind of hope so and I hope I’m here when it goes down. I want to be a piece of the reconstruction, a bard and a trader because this isn’t working and we need something different! There is a pile of books that I haven’t picked up in a few years and I think I’ll be reading Anthem this week just to encourage my little bits of (unwillingly) sober social revolution.

Spitting is a terrible habit that has a strangely huge impact on my life sometimes. I spit constantly and I realize a lot of innocent bystanders find it to be rather disgusting. I don’t do it on purpose! I just have to get that crap out of my body or something. The other day I began to wonder what my face must look like while I use the power of internal suction to gather up all the phlegm in the throat. Not the most appealing images…

The bus stop outside of my work is on a busy street right in front of a gym. While waiting to pull into traffic I watched the shoulders of a welled toned, tanned, middle-aged woman flex and ripple as they worked smoothly to lift a water bottle to her lips and suck its contents down. I could feel the smoke from my cig burn my eyes as the cookies (later to be joined by tequila) settled in the pit of my stomach and the THC cuddled my blood stream. Here I was at 21-years spitting blood and chunky mucus into gravel while someone twice my age was in her physical prime just yards away, it’s almost enough to make a girl feel guilty like I’m not living this existence to the fullest. My overactive imagination corrected this for me: her clear, alert eyes detected an opening in the rush hour rat race and she turned into the street.

BAM! A truck, a crash, a split second.I was breathing still, she was not.I win.

If we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die (from our own arrogance) so we may as well take our time.

for a while I had close friendsthe kind that let you spray paint them when they’re drunk.the kind that keep you warm when the heat goes outthe kind that help you fill up the station wagon when dumpster diving and never blame you for eating that chocolate. or making strange cinnamon treats out of the pizza crust.the kind that will always share their last cigarette with youthe kind that will write lyrics to punk songs and hide them on your computerthe kind that haggles for used skate shoes as a gift to youthe kind that bombs hills with you, even when they have loose bearings.the kind that helps you cook a feast in an unpaid for apartment.the kind that keeps playing even when they bleed.the kind that accidentally breaks your ceiling fan with nunchucksthe kind that allow you to witness them shave their mohawkslet you paint their spikes.the kind that give you hope and faith in humanity.The kind I let go and forced away.

because I like to hear myself talk.
‘I am lucky to constantly be exposed to a ridiculous variety of experiences. I’m almost always completely consumed in this strange sense of appreciation and adoration for all things life. It can never be turned off. Everything is too interesting.’

Like right now, the speed and comfort with which my finger tips are flying across the greasy keys hitting letter after letter individually, forcing them to combine and spill my thoughts on to the page. On to my screen. On to your screen. You’re getting a sense of my life(the passion, the insanity, the awesomely fucked up-ness) from the safety of your own life. What a stunningly beautiful thing. How simply feeling the comfort I associate with typing can bring me to the brim with joy. REAL joy. It’s swirling about in my lungs at all times. My eyes are spinning, over-stimulated, desperately soaking in every last visual drop of information in my surroundings. Caressing it in brain fibers and sending a tingling bliss through my entire nerve system. Even in the two feet that have been crushed in circle pits so many times and are basically numb, they tingle now.
And don’t you want to live this?
don’t you want to look back on your memories and sigh happily with the knowledge that you’ve been living life to the fullest?
don’t you want to look forward to the future and giggle because you understand so clearly that even the most dreadful, terrible things that may occur are in their own way truly lovely?
don’t you want to be lured by the promise of new sensation?
fresh perspective?
don’t you want to be confident in your perception of actuality?

I do.
I am.
I love.

Hmm. Been hitting the bong.
But seriously, how can you let anything pass by you!
WAKE UP.
let the merriment commence!

your willingness to let yourself be happy is the key to full-blooded, unquestionable delight

The things that happened last night somehow managed to skew my immediate perception of the world and I do not like it. In the same moments I realized I need to return to my double daily doses of yoga. A deep sigh here. A distraction there.

When I woke up this morning my roommates were watching Doctor Strangelove. It made me giggle internally because the last time I saw the film I was living in Spokane, it was a Sunday afternoon. My old guitarist and I were sitting on the front porch of my broken down apartment building practicing our punk set acoustic style because the rest of the band was out of town. A neighbour came walking across the street without any shoes and we felt sure he would be coming to tell us to keep it down. Instead he told us that he had a mini studio in his apartment and invited us over. Turns out he did music scores for IFC and upon walking in we saw a beautiful set up of iMacs and audio equipment. We played a few of our songs for him, he was encouraging and told us that back in the 70s he was really into the then new onset of this thing called punk rock. He couldn’t have been more right; when getting up to use the bathroom (having to to avoid several cats) I noticed a gold record on the wall. To my great surprise, it was for an album in 1978 by The Skulls. I immediately questioned his possession of it, and to the great delight we found that we had just smoked [out of a small bronzed Coca Cola bubbler] with a teeny tiny little piece of history. Then we watched Doctor Strangelove and walked back home in a haze induced by both drugs and awe. I had completely forgotten about this experience until now. Wow.

I’ll be the first to admit it: I am a crazy cat lady. The big orange one is Sean Connery.
There are two others; MacGruber and Isotope. At some point last night I awoke to find two cats silhouetted in the window. Isotope was licking Sean Connery’s face.

Yesterday the weather was beautifully deceptive. Sunny and bright and glowing from my window; when I stepped outside my face froze instantly. Bicycling in that temperature was wholly uncomfortable even with the layers I was wearing. The majority of my day was spent standing in lines. At the Department of Licensing, at the bank, at the cable company, at the court house. Lines are terrible for one main reason; everyone in a line is in a bad mood. Impatient, angry, annoyed- it’s pure negative vibes! A very draining way to exist on a Wednesday afternoon.

The light part of the day was ending and I quite randomly decided to do something uncharacteristic.